Featured at Aish.com:

About the Author

Food lovers around the world have something to celebrate with the launching of the successful new cooking blog, May I Have That Recipe; http://mayihavethatrecipe.com/. Sharing their passion for food and inspired cooking on their amazing new blog, May I Have That Recipe, sisters, Vicky and Ruth, achieve the most delicious, and often exotic flavors from the simplest, natural foods available. The Sephardic sisters return to their roots to harvest their Mediterranean background. Inspired by the foods of their childhood, their cooking is bold and full of flavor. Many of their recipes are infused with items you might not have considered previously: …. lemon (always fresh!), sumac, zaatar, pomegranate molasses, orange blossom and rose water, that will enhance your cooking, allow you to experience new flavors, and get a taste of the Mediterranean without ever leaving your kitchen. And now, thanks to this incredible new blog, May I Have That Recipe, you’ll gain a more expanded cooking repertoire and serve a wider palette of bold flavors bursting with flavor and color.

It is a joy to experience their incredible recipes, inspired and influenced from the countries of their Syrian/Lebanese/Turkish Jewish parents. But the real specialty of this cooking duo is performing recipe makeovers; they start with a recipe that appeals to them, and then change it to make it kosher, vegetarian, or vegan. Then they change it to make it healthier. They continue developing the recipe until it is perfect and then post it for you to use. They will often transform and adapt a recipe utilizing innovative products such as chia seeds, almond milk, coconut oil, almond flour.

As Vicky and Ruth continue to build their subscriber base, you can subscribe to their blog for free and receive e-mail notifications each time a recipe is posted.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 2

(2)
Leah,
September 26, 2015 7:59 PM

Yellow basmati rice? Not really

Please use actual photos of the finished recipe. Several times I have followed a recipe to find out that the picture doesn't match the list of ingredients as in the photo of the "rice pilaf with saffron" above. The picture you show is made with chicken fat and saffron.

(1)
Sarah Vorchheimer,
October 6, 2012 11:11 AM

Questions on ingredients

Fresh figs or dried figs? What is Agave? Is it, perhaps, called something else in Australia?
On the Challah, my bread machine goes by weight and, also, what size cup are you using - how many ml? My instant dried yeast comes in sachets of 7g per sachet. How many sachets? Can one use fresh apples? What qty?

Submit Your Comment:

Name:*

Display my name?

YesNo

Email:*

Your email address is kept private. Our editor needs it in case we have a question about your comment.

Since honey is produced by bees, and bees are not a kosher species, how can honey be kosher?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

The Talmud (Bechoros 7b) asks your very question! The Talmud bases this question on the principle that “whatever comes from a non-kosher species is non-kosher, and that which comes from something kosher is kosher.”

So why is bee-honey kosher? Because even though bees bring the nectar into their bodies, the resultant honey is not a 'product' of their bodies. It is stored and broken down in their bodies, but not produced there. (see Shulchan Aruch Y.D. 81:8)

By the way, the Torah (in several places such as Exodus 13:5) praises the Land of Israel as "flowing with milk and honey." But it may surprise you to know that the honey mentioned in the verse is actually referring to date and fig honey (see Rashi there)!

In 1809, a group of 70 disciples of the great Lithuanian sage the Vilna Gaon, arrived in Israel, after traveling via Turkey by horse and wagon. The Vilna Gaon set out for the Holy Land in 1783, but for unknown reasons did not attain his goal. However he inspired his disciples to make the move, and they became pioneers of modern settlement in Israel. (A large contingent of chassidic Jews arrived in Tzfat around the same time.) The leader of the 1809 group, Rabbi Israel of Shklov, settled in Tzfat, and six years later moved to Jerusalem where he founded the modern Ashkenazic community. The early years were fraught with Arab attacks, earthquakes, and a cholera epidemic. Rabbi Israel authored, Pe'at Hashulchan, a digest of the Jewish agricultural laws relating to the Land of Israel. (He had to rewrite the book after the first manuscript was destroyed in a fire.) The location of his grave remained unknown until it was discovered in Tiberias, 125 years after his death. Today, the descendants of that original group are amongst the most prominent families in Jerusalem.

When you experience joy, you feel good because your magnificent brain produces hormones called endorphins. These self-produced chemicals give you happy and joyful feelings.

Research on these biochemicals has proven that the brain-produced hormones enter your blood stream even if you just act joyful, not only when you really are happy. Although the joyful experience is totally imaginary and you know that it didn’t actually happen, when you speak and act as if that imaginary experience did happen, you get a dose of endorphins.

These chemicals are naturally produced by your brain. They are totally free and entirely healthy.

Many people find that this knowledge inspires them to create more joyful moments. It’s not just an abstract idea, but a physical reality.

Occasionally, when I walk into an office, the receptionist greets me rudely. Granted, I came to see someone else, and a receptionist's disposition is immaterial to me. Yet, an unpleasant reception may cast a pall.

A smile costs nothing. Greeting someone with a smile even when one does not feel like smiling is not duplicity. It is simply providing a pleasant atmosphere, such as we might do with flowers or attractive pictures.

As a rule, "How are you?" is not a question to which we expect an answer. However, when someone with whom I have some kind of relationship poses this question, I may respond, "Not all that great. Would you like to listen?" We may then spend a few minutes, in which I unburden myself and invariably begin to feel better. This favor is usually reciprocated, and we are both thus beneficiaries of free psychotherapy.

This, too, complies with the Talmudic requirement to greet a person in a pleasant manner. An exchange of feelings that can alleviate someone's emotional stress is even more pleasant than an exchange of smiles.

It takes so little effort to be a real mentsch.

Today I shall...

try to greet everyone in a pleasant manner, and where appropriate offer a listening ear.

With stories and insights,
Rabbi Twerski's new book Twerski on Machzor makes Rosh Hashanah prayers more meaningful. Click here to order...